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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Daily Star

The Daily Star Home About us Photos Videos Subscriptions RSS Feeds Today's Paper Classifieds Contact Us Sign in Register WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY 2011 09:59 PM Beirut time Weather Beirut20 °C Blom Index 1,394.7 News Business Opinion Sports Culture Technology Entertainment Politics Local News Analysis Middle East International Environment HealthLebanon Middle East International AnalysisEditorial Columnist CommentaryFootball Basketball Motor Sports Tennis GolfPerformance Lifestyle Art Film Music Books Travel & TourismInternational RegionalMovie Guide Sudoku Str8ts Columnist Panetta’s and Petraeus’ brief is imagining the worst May 03, 2011 01:36 AM (Last updated: May 03, 2011 01:36 AM) By Fareed Zakaria The Daily Star As Leon Panetta and David Petraeus move into their new jobs at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, they should use the occasion to fundamentally reorient U.S. intelligence and national security planning.

Consider the intelligence community. The United States spends around $80 billion on intelligence every year – more than the rest of the world put together – and yet the country seems perpetually unprepared for global events.The CIA did not imagine the fall of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of Eastern Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against New York and Washington, the nonexistence of Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the global financial crisis and, most recently, the Arab Spring.I’m not suggesting that it was possible to predict these events. Very few people or organizations foresaw them, certainly not in a timely manner, and those who did might well have simply been lucky. International crises happen when they happen for a variety of complex reasons that are always easier to see in hindsight.However, the goal should instead be preparedness. Government agencies should be readying policymakers and bureaucrats for sharp changes in international, regional and national patterns. They should be imaginative about the possibilities of sudden shifts and new circumstances, and force policymakers to confront the scenarios in advance.This is what has distinguished the most successful private-sector firms in managing crises. Contrary to the mythology rampant in Washington and across the country, banks such as J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs did not “know” the housing market would collapse in 2007. They could have made that prediction as easily in 2005 or 2006, bet on it and lost lots of money, as many firms did. What J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others that weathered the financial crisis did was to carefully manage their risk – being prepared for sharp shifts in the market. Rather than betting on continuity – which is usually the default mechanism for people and organizations – they prepared for the possibility of a sudden shock.That’s why I hope that at the highest levels of the United States government, there are multiple scenarios envisioned for a crisis in Saudi Arabia. Of all the possible effects of events in the Middle East, the most complex by far would be serious protests in Saudi Arabia. This is not probable, but it is possible. The Saudi monarchy has roots in its society, a compact with powerful religious groups and staggering amounts of money with which to bribe its people. But still, there are fissures – most notably between the kingdom’s Shiites and Sunnis. If these were to erupt, there would be seismic implications ($200-a-barrel oil, anyone?), and Washington would have to react shrewdly and quickly. It would make perfect sense to have a basic set of responses planned and even discussed with our allies instead of having to react on the fly as television images demand action in the heat of the moment.The other way to be prepared is to be in a position of stable finances and commitments, so you can deal with a shock. The analogy with the private sector holds here, too. The key to riding out a financial crisis is to not be overleveraged but to have comfortable reserves of cash that will allow you to manage difficult times. And yet the United States is overextended in every sense: struggling with debt, fighting military actions in multiple places and beginning to be hit by a demographic time bomb. We might be able to navigate through all this as long as we don’t hit another big crisis. That’s not a comfortable place to be.Look at Japan. It prepared well for the possibility of earthquakes, so that even when a mega-earthquake plus a tsunami hit, it was able to minimize the loss of life. But over the previous two decades, it had run up such enormous deficits – its debt is 200 percent of gross domestic product – that it lacks resources to properly respond and rebuild its economy.We will never be able to predict the next geopolitical, economic or natural disaster. But we can position ourselves to be prepared, and have a little more cash in the bank than we do now.Fareed Zakaria is published twice monthly by THE DAILY STAR.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on May 03, 2011, on page 7. Home Columnist Comments Ted Rudow III, MA May 09, 2011 In Orwell’s book “1984, the main character worked for the “Ministry of Truth, dedicated to eliminating every vestige of the truth and replacing it with what the government said was truth. Winston is painfully aware of the telescreen, which is both a receiver and transmitter at the same time. It incessantly relays messages from the Party and simultaneously allows the dreaded “thought police to tune into the activities of any individual at any given time." Obama continued to give fear to try again to win the voter confidence, selling "the Party" agenda in his speech last night. "WAR IS PEACE- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY -IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" It would have seem that the constant abuse of language by the Obama administration would end --This was Orwell's future, our present!